Hello and welcome to this edition of Africa Express here on China Radio International. I'm your host, Wei Tong.
It used to be that when people talk about weapons of mass destruction they meant nuclear weapons which have been used only twice in the history of humanity. But on the African continent, as in other regions plagued by conflicts, it is small arms that have brought misery and suffering to so many people. So, the movement that is underway for the adoption of an international treaty to control arms trade will surely benefit the African continent.
Small weapons such as AK 47s and handguns are a major source of problems in Africa ranging from civil conflicts to common crimes. In fact, you can argue that small arms also pose a serious threat to the development of the continent because they create a perception of instability and insecurity which, in turn, can scare away possible investors. The gravity of the problem is captured by Ambassador Emyr Jones Parry of the United Kingdom, one of the advocates for an international treaty to control the arms trade.
Small arms is, in Africa the second largest killer. That means it kills more than TB, more than anything other than HIV/AIDS.
One problem is that the guns which are so prevalent in many African countries are not manufactured there. Mary Robinson, the former President of Ireland and United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, notes that these small arms may be brought into the African countries concerned through legal trading channels but then end up in illegal sales. Mrs. Robinson says because of her first hand experience traveling through many African countries, she feels strongly that there should be a global treaty to control trade in small arms.
I saw first hand the reality that it is the small arms that are the weapons of mass destruction at ground level, whether it was in Sierra Leone, in various parts of the Democratic Republic of Congo, and I often sat with those who were the victims and very often, of course, they were the women and children.
In addition to causing death and destruction in conflicts, small arms have also encroached into the lifestyles of rural communities. Ambassador Zachary Muburi Muita of Kenya says in Somalia small weapons are now readily available in rural communities.
What this has meant is that in rural communities -- in the Horn of Africa pastoralism is a major way of life -- spears and arrows and bows have been substituted with small arms. So innocent communities that had never known any major conflicts today have assumed and adopted the Kalashnikov, for instance, as a standard weapon instead of the spear that has traditionally been the weapon.
Ambassador Muburi-Muita points out that African cities are not immune to the negative impact of small arms as is evident in the increased number of muggings and car-jackings. But the good news, according to Joseph Dube, Coordinator of the Africa Section of Control Arms Campaign which is jointly run by Oxfam, Amnesty International and the International Action Network on Small Arms, is that ordinary citizens are now actively involved in calling governments to do something about small arms.
"We have got the consultations happening in Africa, countries like the DRC, South Africa and Nigeria. The exciting part is that people actually are actually sharing their views. They are actually sharing what they feel and what they are experiencing everyday."
Last year, the General Assembly, adopted a resolution, supported over one hundred and fifty countries, which requested the United Nations Secretary-General to get feedback from governments on what should be in the legally-binding international treaty to control the import, export and transfer of small weapons.
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